Method of handling accounts



c. F. BALCH.

METHOD OF HANDLING ACCOUNTS.

APPLICATION FILED IUNE23. 1921.

- Patented May 16,

11 MAW CLIFTON F. BALCH, OF EVANSTON, ILLINOIS.

METHOD OF HANDLING ACCOUNTS.

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7 Application filed June 23, 1921. Serial No. 479,859.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that l, CLIFTON F. BALOI-I, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of the city of Evanston, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in a Method for Handling Accounts; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, and to the numerals of reference marked thereon, which form a part of this specification.

In handling the accounts of railroad cars, in order to keep track of the movements of these cars and the cargoes carried thereby, it has been the practice heretofore for the conductor of the railroad train to list the cars with the information concerning each car upon a tablet such as is illustrated in the patent to Gilkey and Ogden, N. 1,052,414, granted Feb. 4%, 1913. The sheets of paper from such tablets go from the train conductor to the accounting department of the railroad. Here they are out into strips, each strip containing theinformation concerning one car. These strips are sorted so that the information to be entered in any one book or to be handled by any one clerk is brought together.

It is an object of this invention to devise a method whereby this sorting can be more economically and rapidly performed.

It is a further object of this invention to. devise a method whereby the sorting may be made so much more economical than heretofore that it may profitably be carried to a much higher degree so that not only shall each clerk receive the information with which he must deal, but all the information which is to be recorded in a given book or at a given page shall be brought together.

It is a further object of this invention to adapt the slips that are obtained from such sheets as are shown in the patent to Gilkey and Ogden to the methods in whichcard sorting machines are used.

It is a further ob'ect of this invention to obtain the advantages of card sorting machines without the necessity of translating the data upon each slip into the form of punch'marks upon a card.

It is a further object of this invention to utilize cards for the sorting of the slips and to provide for the repeated use of the same cards.

Other and further important objects of this invention will be apparent from the disclosures in the specification and the accompanying drawings.

The invention in a preferred form is diagrammatically illustrated on the drawings and will be hereinafter more fully described.

On the drawings The figure is a diagram illustrating the method in question.

As shown on the drawings:

The first step in the process consists in cutting sheets, similar to that illustrated in the patent to Gilkey and (lgden, into strips, one strip for each car. This is indicated at the upper lefthand part of the figure, where 1 is such a sheet. 2 is a knife which stands for the operation of any suitable cutting machine. 3 is a slip severed from the sheet 1.

At the upper right hand corner of the drawing is represented a pile of cards 4-. of the shape and size suited to co-operate with a card sorting machine such as is shown in the patent of Trew, No. 1,214,394, issued January 30, 1917. At 5 there is diagrammatically represented a pasting machine. As shown, this consists of a tray 6 for holding paste and a rotary set of arms 7 for applying same. The arrow 8 is intended to indicate that the cards come in turn from the pile and are subjected to the action of the paste applying machine so that a portion of the surface of each card is covered with fresh paste.

The arrow 9 is intended to indicate that the slips 3, after they are severed from the sheet 1, are conveyedto the cards and applied as shown at 11, one slip on each card. The card 10 with the slip 11 affixed thereto indicates the result of this operation, a slip 3 from the shoot 1 and a card 10 from the pile of cards t having been united by the paste. Preferably this operation is performed by machinery, but the machinery does not constitute any part of my invention, as machines for doingthis work are well known to those skilled in this art.

The arrow 12 isintended to indicate that the cards with the slips 11 ailixed thereto pass into a sorting machine 13. Preferably this is a part of the same automatic machine that performs the operations already described, but my invention is not limited to the use of a single machine. The sorting machine 13 may be any type of sorting machine in which the cards are moved so that they are successively presented to the view of the operator, as shown by the card 141-. In the typical machine of this sort a package of cards 15 is caused to travel toward the operator, the top or front card being located so it is readily seen, but the invention is not limited to machines which present the cards in this fashion. lit is suflicient if the operator has a view of the cards successively.

' 'l hemachine includes a keyboard 16. The operator looks at the slip 17 upon the card 1 1 and at the particular point on the slip where the data according to which this par ticular sorting is to be done is found. He then punches the key corresponding to the information found. upon the slip. The operation of the sorting machine is such that upon punching a. key the card will be dilivered to the corresponding one of the boxes 18. There will be as many boxes as there are different kinds of data in the particular in formation being tabulated. At the maximum there will be as many boxes as there are keys upon the keyboard.

When the cards have been sorted according to the first item, the cards thus brought together are run again through the same or another sorting machine to bring together those which the next item indicates should be together and so on until. the arrangement of the cards is carried to the desired point.

lVhen the sorting is completed, cards from each boX are removed and handed. to the clerk who is concerned in entering in the books the information contained upon these particular cards, The sorting is repeated as many times as is needed to get the degree of division of data required by the accounting system used.

Finally the cards go, as indicated by the arrow 19, to a machine 20 which is represented as operating upon a card 21. This machine, by knives 22 or in any other suitable manner, removes the slips 17 from the cards to which they were pasted, thus leaving the cards available for repeated use. It is not necessary that the cards be stripped by the machine 20 after each application of the slips 17, but the slips may be applied one after another until. the whole face of the card is full and the card may then be reversed and the opposite face used before the cards are cleaned, if such a method is desired.

While I have described by invention in connection with the posting of car accounts, it will, of course, be understood that the same process or method may be followed in connection with the checking or posting of many different kinds of accounts other than those I have specifically referred to, such for instance as the posting or checking of chain store accounts, freight and passenger accounts of railroads where accounts are rendered by one company to another, and many other accounts which will be readily suggested by this disclosure.

llhile I have illustrated and described the use of a sorting machine in sorting the cards, it will, of course, be apparent that Where the operation is comparatively small or in a limited field, the use of the sorting machine may be eliminated and the sorting may be done manually.

Other variations may be made in the details of this process without departing from the spirit of my invention, and I do not wish to limit the patent granted otherwise than is required by the prior art.

I claim as my invention:

1. A process of arranging information which consists in listing the information upon a sheet, separating the items of information by cutting the sheet into slips, pasting the slips on cards of a shape and size suitable for co-operatingwith a sorting machine, running the cards through a sorting machine, operating the sorting machine by keyboard, so that items of the particular sort of information desired are brought together, and entering in books the collated information.

2. A method of posting car accounts which consists in separating the trainmans reports into slips, each slip containing the record of one car, pasting the slips upon cards, the cards being of a standard size to co-operate with a sorting machine, sorting the cards by such a machine so that those which should be posted together are collected in one place posting from the collected cards, and finally removing the slips from the cards.

3. A. method of posting car accounts which consists in separating the trainmans sports into slips, each slip containing the record of one car, pasting the slips upon cards, the cards being of a standard size to co-operate with a sorting machine, sorting the cards by such a machine so that those which should be posted together are collected in one place, posting from the collected cards, and finally removing the slips from the cards, and using the cards to repeat the process with other slips. I

1. The method of posting car accounts which consists in separating the trainmans reports into slips, each slip containing the data for one car, applying paste to the cen tral portion of each card or a succession of cards of suitable size and shape for handling by a sorting machine, impressing the slips upon the paste-covered portion of the cards, placing the cards with the slips thereon in a sorting machine, sorting the cards by keyboard in accordance with the data eX- hibited upon the slips, posting from the sorted cards, and removing the slips from the cards.

5. A process of arranging information which consists in listing the information upon a sheet, separating the items of information by cutting the sheet into slips, pasting the slips on cards of a shape and size suitable for ready sorting so that the items of the particular sort of information desired may be quickly brought together, and entering into books the collated information.

6. A method of posting car accounts Which consists in separating the trainmans reports into slips, each slip containing the record of one car, pasting the slips upon cards, the cards being of a standard size to permit ready sorting, so that those cards Which should be posted together may be readily grouped, posting from the collected cards, and finally removing the slips from the cards.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto subscribed my name in the presence of tWo subscribing Witnesses.

CLIFTON F. BALOH.

Witnesses:

CHARLES W. HILLS, J r., CARLTON HILL. 

